This week in National Press Club history

October 6, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson makes a surprise appearance at a National Press Club luncheon honoring American cartoonists, joining Milton Caniff (“Steve Canyon” and “Terry and the Pirates”) at the head table with other notables of that art form. He reportedly comments that one politician who was offended by his caricature said he couldn’t find the artist, so he hung the picture instead.

October 6, 1999: The Most Reverend Dr. Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1984) speaks at a Club luncheon about human rights.

October 7, 1994: Nelson Mandela, just five months in office as the first black president of the Republic of South Africa, makes his second appearance at the National Press Club.

He had appeared in 1991 as President of the African National Congress, twenty-two months after his release from prison. Klein remembers in particular Mandela’s calm, and his stressing that freedom of the press is absolutely essential if liberty is to be maintained, and that the only way forward for his country was to unite people on the basis of reconciliation and reconstruction.

In 2012, the National Press Club honors Mandela in a special celebration with the South African embassy of "The Life, Legacy and Values of Nelson Mandela." He died the following year at the age of 95.

This Week In National Press Club History is presented by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s thrilling history through panel discussions, special events, lobby displays of prominent guests in many disciplines and an oral history project.

For more information on the Committee’s activities, or to join it, contact Chair Gilbert Klein at [email protected].